A Feather in the Rain (17 page)

“He's a pretty good boy. He's just scared. I don't think he's got a mean bone in him.” He reached and rubbed the once clenched muzzle between his hands and felt it soften like dough before it's bread. “We just might suit each other. What do you think, boy?” He traced a circle lightly between his eyes, then stroked an ear. “We've got to come up with a good name for him.” He was looking
at Holly. “You do it. You name him.”

“I'll have to think about that.”

Holly was holding the lead rope at the wash rack getting showered with over-spray as Jesse wielded hose and sponge, flushing dirt and sweat from the seal-smooth hide. The colt seemed content with the attention and his very first bath. Maybe this wasn't such a bad world after all.

He found Chauncy, the little black goat and put him in the arena with the colt. The colt arched his neck and stiffened with nostrils flaring. He lowered his head as if to bite or strike the little guy. Holly said, “He could kill that goat in a second.”

“Chauncy's quicker than a mongoose. He'd have hell trying to get a piece of him.” Just then, the colt's ears came forward as he sniffed the goat and determined he was not a threat. The goat walked around the colt to check him out and finally walked right under his belly and out the other side. The colt pushed his nose against the goat's ribs and a friendship was born.

H
e'd been thinking maybe tonight they would just hold each other and talk or not talk —just be with each other. She was lying there in pale moonlight and candle glow like a portrait from another time. He could feel the steamy warmth of her radiating from the bed to where he stood. The curving ivory shoulders, her bosom rising above and beneath Irish lace, a slender arm under her head, the golden shimmer of hair spread across the pillow, a curl rested in her armpit. Her eyes were half closed; a distant smile gave no clue of its cause.

He slipped under the covers and moved his arm across her breasts. He was full of the feel of her flesh under the thin sliding gown as he drew it up and down. An unspeakable passion began to swell in him. He turned her face to his as his hand traced her thigh beneath the film of fabric and kissed her parted lips, tasting the peppermint candy that she pushed into his mouth with her tongue. He lifted the gown over her head and draped it to cover his face and
wrapped it tight, a mummy mask, and bent to kiss her belly through the cloth across his lips, then moved to the soft moist mound and slipped away the gown from his face. He felt himself drawn into a wilderness of danger and enchantment. Her fingers moved in his hair, clutching at his brain.

She seemed as light as air, his hand beneath her back, the other on her breast, a leg over his shoulder, as he pushed against her with all of his being until with a stifled cry he ceased to exist as Jesse and became Holly Marie. She pulled him to her and said his name, “Jesse, yes…yes.”

H
e loaded her bags in the truck. When he came back into the house, she was looking at a framed, black and white photo on the wall. It was Zack, two years old, on the black horse, tucked into the saddle in front of Jesse and holding the reins in fingers articulate beyond his years. She felt him behind her. “He's holding the reins just the way you do.” He took a deep breath and on the exhale, said, “Yeah…” He was a little surprised to find his eyes instantly wet.

“It's a great picture,” she said, aware of its effect. She moved to gaze at the others, his mother and father, a grandmother, two grandfathers, uncles and aunts and cowboys and old men with moustaches. She wanted to imprint them freshly in her mind to take the memory along. There were none of Jolene or any other woman.

A slim history of a man alone.

They walked to the barn where she said adios to Ricardo and Blizzard and Dozer, the horses she'd ridden, and the pregnant mare San Mamacita, and then to the arena where the black colt stood
looking at them with curiosity instead of suspicion and rage. Chauncy was three feet away like a small shadow of the coal-black colt.

She hung her arms on the top rail, looking at him and said, “Soot. Lamar described him that way. I think it's right. I think you ought to call him Soot.”

“Soot. I think it fits him. Soot it is. Hey, Soot.” The colt flicked his ears, shook his mane and moved his feet but stayed where he was.

“They respond to you in a way I've never seen. Why is that?”

He shrugged, “I don't know. Maybe they sense that I'm not trying to steal their fire. I just want to share it a little.”

“Are you trying to steal my fire?”

“No ma'am. I want to keep your fire burning right where it is.”

F
light 2452 was ready for general boarding. They got up and walked toward the entrance to the jetway. He took her in his arms and held her so tight he thought he might hurt her. “I feel like I've got a bowling ball in my throat. I love you, Holly Marie.”

“Thank you.” She smiled in that perfect politeness. “You be a good boy now.”

“Holler at me. Let me know you got there all right. Thanks for coming.”

“Thanks for the riding lessons.”

He stepped back. “Bye.”

She backed away toward the entrance, smiling a sad smile and raised her hand. Then she turned and was gone.

Cedar-stake fence posts sutured the road-scar through the wind-tortured skin of the earth. He felt his guts were about to spill out onto the floor of the truck. He'd been transported to places he didn't know existed. But where in hell could it possibly go from
here? He still didn't know how old she was. There were times she looked fourteen. She lived more than a thousand miles away. He had no idea what she wanted for her life. He knew damn near nothing about her except she'd lost a brother she adored, had been a successful model, had neat parents, and was possessed of a unique intelligence. Why in hell would she be wanting to have anything to do with him?

H
e avoided the house when he returned home and headed instead for the arena. The arena was big enough for the colt to make things unpleasant if he didn't want to be caught. Jesse had a carrot in his back pocket. He walked easily toward the colt, projecting an expectation of good behavior. Anything less would cause suspicion. He murmured his seductive patois and held out his hand in greeting as he got closer, slowing as he read the colt's attitude. Ears flicking. Nostrils wide, slightly tense, a ripple of sound, not quite a snort. Jesse stopped, then moved to his right. The colt shifted to face him. Jesse was three feet away. He stayed there talking easily, calling him Soot. He kept his hand extended and moved a foot closer. It seemed the colt might leave, so Jesse remained where he was. Then he backed a step and beckoned the colt to come to him. After some consideration and after listening to Jesse, he took a step to him. Jesse backed another step and waited. Soot took another step and another until his nose met Jesse's hand and the soft stroking that followed.
He slipped the halter over his head, gave him the carrot and led him out of the arena to the round pen.

The saddle was on the ground in the center. The soft ranch rope beside. He shut the door and took off the halter. The colt stood there. Jesse gently pushed him away and whooshed him into a trot around the pen. He picked up the rope and swung the loop easily around his head in rhythm with the cadence of the trot. What tension there was evaporated quickly, and soon Soot began to lick his lips and look at Jesse for instruction. Jesse stepped in front of him and he easily turned around and went the other way settling back into the cadenced trot, Jesse chatting to him all the time.

He loped him in both directions without him panicking and running off, and when he finally stepped forward and said whoa, the colt stopped instantly and turned to face him. He walked up and stroked his face and neck, telling him what a good boy he was.

“Pretty neat.” Abbie's head just barely cleared the top of the wall.

Jesse looked up at her and smiled.

“I've been watching.”

“For about five minutes,” he said, letting her know he missed nothing.

“Right. He's a handsome devil.”

Jesse smiled. “Get on Roanie. I'm gonna ride this guy in here for a few minutes and then take him into the arena and move him around a little.”

Side by side with the colt along the arena fence and Abbie on the roan, they moved at a long easy trot. Jesse picking up a light feel on the reins, guided the colt into the corners bending him and lining him out on the straightaway, teaching him with gentle tugs to follow his nose.

Forty-five minutes later, Jesse had stripped him off and was running his hands over legs and ankles, tendons, and pasterns, and massaging the pressure points above the hooves. He stood up and stepped back, taking a hard, cold look. Abbie was saddling Kevin Bradley's horse but watching every move Jesse made. He ran his
hand along the sculpted hip. “It's hard to believe this guy is out of a mustang mare. Anybody'd swear he was pure quarter horse. Look at that hip. Hocks set low. Short cannons, even the jaw.” He took a deep breath and blew it out. “Man, I'm afraid to think about what I might have here.”

T
he sun was gone, leaving a soggy night. He left the porch chair and entered the house. It felt empty and cold, though the night was warm. He stood in the doorway to the guestroom, the bed where she slept the first night, made, the flowers beginning to wilt, the scent of her lingering in the air. He sat on the bed and bent to smell the pillow where her head had lain. The scent was stronger there. He stood up slowly, looked around, and breathed it in. An envelope, pink, was tucked under the edge of the vase. He unfolded the note walking into the living room and sat on the sofa. The same scent wafted from the paper. He brought it close to his face till it touched. Then he held it far enough away to read.

Dear Jesse,

I did not know if you wanted me to change the sheets. I slept there but one hour as I tossed and turned the night thinking of you. I thrived with your care and love. I feel as if
a fine powder has brushed against my skin like fairy dust on the petals of a rose. Your touch has reminded me of the essence of my nature…the softness that comes with being a woman.

Thank you,

Holly Marie

Beneath her name, she'd drawn in simple black strokes, a falcon launching toward the heavens.

Sunk deep in the sofa with his feet on the table, he read the note again, this time aloud and then again. Then he refolded it, slipped it back in the envelope, took it to the guestroom, and put it back where he found it. He filled his lungs with the perfumed air and left the room closing the door behind him.

Stretched on the sofa, scotch in hand, trying to separate thought from feeling, mind from heart and soul. Yes, she cared, he could believe that. Now what? Why not just take it as it comes? What if there isn't anymore? A new agony rose. As he tried to strangle it, the phone rang. The hollowness was gone when he heard her say, “I'm home.”

“I wish you weren't. My house feels like a dungeon.”

“I had a wonderful time. The first thing my parents said when they saw me was, ‘You look great.' I looked in a mirror. They were right. They're yelling down to say hi and thank you for taking such good care of me.”

She asked about Soot. She said she was tired, hadn't slept at all last night, thinking about leaving.

He asked if it would be all right if he called her.

She said, “You better,” and wished him sweet dreams, “Goodnight, Jesse Burrell.”

“Goodnight, Holly Marie…” His conscience and reason almost betrayed him. He damn near said, “I love you…” but did not, and felt he'd been dishonest. His bed, cold and empty, offered little comfort that night and short fits of troubled sleep.

A
n alfalfa-scented breeze blew across the high plains around the Double Rainbow Ranch and along the second story porch where Holly and Ruby, in wide-brimmed straw hats adorned with fake sunflowers, sat watching a reddish gold ball sliding toward the horizon west of Pikes Peak.

“I thought I was dead inside. He woke up something in me, Mom, and he did it without trying. I wish you could have seen him with that wild colt. It was magic, sometimes I still don't think I really saw it.”

“Oh, sweetheart, I'm so happy you had a good time.”

“I want to see him again.”

“Well, Holly, invite him to come here. Your little Holly House will be finished in a week or so and you can stay there…or whatever…Bear would love to have him come. It'd be so good for him to have a male friend to hang out with. And he could help you with the horses…” The small hoof-clatter on the slatted wood floor and
tingling bell preceded Bingo, looking for attention. He pushed his horns against Holly's leg. She scratched between the horns and he pushed harder. “Manners,” she said and shoved him away. “So you think Bear would like to have him come visit?”

“He'd love it. While you were in Texas, he talked about Jesse, how much he liked him.”

“I'm gonna do it.” She raised the Coke can to strawberry lips and said, “Look,” as the sun threw a last bloody glance at a world of purple and gold under billows of white. Bear's car came crunching up the gravel drive between a pair of pastures. The mother and daughter, who looked like sisters, stood up.

T
wo days were as long as he could wait before he called. “You should do a video about training horses. I could help you put it together and shoot it and Bear could market it.” She was full of ideas. She extended the invitation to the Double Rainbow.

“Wow. Would I like to do that.” His heart pounded at the thought. “This place would disintegrate in two days if I left right now. But I'll sure put my mind to it. I know you've got things to do there, but if you find you've got time to come back to Texas before I can come to Colorado, even if it's just for two or three days, I'll send you the tickets. I miss you.” It was out of his mouth before he could help it.